Apparatus and Method for Segmenting an Image

ABSTRACT

A method and system for segmenting a plurality of images. The method comprises the steps of segmenting the image through a novel clustering technique that is, generating a composite depth map including temporally stable segments of the image as well as segments in subsequent images that have changed. These changes may be determined by determining one or more differences between the temporally stable depth map and segments included in one or more subsequent frames. Thereafter, the portions of the one or more subsequent frames that include segments including changes from their corresponding segments in the temporally stable depth map are processed and are combined with the segments from the temporally stable depth map to compute their associated disparities in one or more subsequent frames. The images may include a pair of stereo images acquired through a stereo camera system at a substantially similar time.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates generally to stereo imaging and more particularly to a new Graphic Processing Unit (GPU)-based stereo algorithm that addresses many difficulties typically associated with stereo imaging. The algorithm is considered as belonging to a family of surface-disparity algorithms, where the scene is treated as a series of slowly-varying surfaces, with homogenized color/texture. The algorithm also preferably includes a real-time component, dubbed residual stereo compute, which addresses real-time constraints and the minimization of compute load in real-time, by only analyzing changes in the image, as opposed to the entire image. Finally, the algorithm also preferably addresses another chronic problem in stereo imaging, aliasing due to texture regions.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

With the ascent of new parallel computing platforms, such as the use of GPUs, as presented in NVIDIA: CUDA compute unified device architecture, prog. guide, version 1.1, 2007 and various accelerated processing units (APUs), real-time high-quality stereo imaging has become increasingly feasible. GPUs are comprised of a number of threaded Streaming multiprocessors (SMs), each of which is, in turn, comprised of a number of streaming processors (SPs), with example architectures presented in David Kirk and Wen-Mei W. Hwu, Programming Massively Parallel Processors A Hands-on Approach.: Elsevier, 2010.

The human visual system is very hierarchical, and visual recognition is performed in layers, first by recognizing the most basic features of an image, and then recognizing higher-level combinations of those features. This process continues until the brain recognizes an adequately high-level representation of the visual input. FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating possible different levels in the visual hierarchy as set forth in M. Marszalek and C. Schmid, “Semantic hierarchies for visual object recognition,” in Proceedings of IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 2007. CVPR '07, MN, 2007, pp. 1-7. As is shown in FIG. 1, the most basic functions 110 are first recognized by an individual. Thereafter, higher level patterns and clusters 120 are recognized from these clusters 110. Moving up the heirarchy, shapes and segments 130 are recognized from groups of the patterns and clusters. Finally, after many layers of aggregation, one or more complex objects 140 may be recognized by the individual.

There are many different approaches to stereo imaging. In accordance with the present invention, segment-based approaches will be mainly utilized, and may also be referred to as surface stereo. This is because segment-based approaches best resemble the human visual system. Such algorithms are ones in which the 3D field-of-view is treated as a set of smooth, slowly varying surfaces as set forth in Michael Bleyer, Carsten Rother, and Pushmeet Kohli, “Surface Stereo with Soft Segmentation,” in Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 2010. Segment-based approaches have emerged in recent years as an alternative to many region-based and pixel-based approaches and have outperformed in accuracy on the Middlebury dataset almost any other algorithm. The Middlebury set is widely considered the reference dataset and metric for stereo/disparity computation algorithms as set forth in (2010) Middlebury Stereo Vision Page. [Online]. http://vision.middlebury.edu/stereo/.

There are many reasons why such methods today represent the more dominant approaches in stereo imaging, see Andreas Klaus, Mario Sormann, and Konrad Karner, “Segment-Based Stereo Matching Using Belief Propagation and a Self-Adapting Dissimilarity Measure,” in Proceedings of ICPR 2006, 2006, pp. 15-18. Segment-based approaches address semi-occlusions very well. They are also more robust to local changes. Other pixel and region-based approaches blur edges, causing ambiguity between background and foreground regions, as well as potentially removing smaller objects, as noted in Ines Ernst and Heiko Hirschmuller, “Mutual Information based Semi-Global Stereo Matching on the GPU,” in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 5358, 2008, pp. 228-239. A cross-based local approach as set forth in Jiangbo Lu, Ke Zhang, Gauthier Lafruit, and Francky Catthoor, “REAL-TIME STEREO MATCHING: A CROSS-BASED LOCAL APPROACH,” in 2009 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, 2009 represents an implementation of such approaches on the GPU, but is still impractical because it exhibits weaknesses at regions of high texture and regions with abrupt changes in color/intensity. However, many segment-based approaches are therefore tedious, inaccurate and require a significant amount of computation, even on the GPU.

Therefore, it would be beneficial to provide an improved segment-based approach that overcomes the drawbacks of the prior art.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Therefore, in accordance with various embodiments of the present invention, an inventive system and method has been developed for disparity estimation in stereo images associated with current stereo algorithms. The implementation of a preferred embodiment of the invention may utilize a GPU or other dedicated processing unit, allowing for significant improvements in performance, both in accuracy and efficiency, but may be employed on any appropriate computing platform.

In accordance with the various embodiments of the present invention, a novel surface/segment-based approach for computing disparity estimation is provided, a real-time approach to computing stereo on the residual image as opposed to the entire image is described, and a means for addressing textured regions, which has been a major drawback of previous stereo algorithms, is finally presented.

Therefore, in accordance with various embodiments of the present invention, the following will be presented:

1. Segment-based disparity decomposition: a new technique for segment-based disparity decomposition, defining a new clustering/segmentation strategy.

2. Segmentation with GPU implementation.

3. Texture-based segmentation and disparity/stereo computation and the concept of texture emergence with disparity computation

4. GPU-based heterogeneous sorting algorithm, and the underlying concept of data reduction

5. APU claim for sorting heterogeneous data through the utilization of the CPU and a number of ALUs, all sharing the fundamental memory architecture

6. Residual compute stereo. Video encoding scheme for residual compute.

7. Stereo on the Bayer pattern, and only demosaicing the residual image

8. Stereo codec associated with Residual Compute stereo

Implementation may preferably be on a Graphical Processing Unit (GPU), with comparisons being highlighted with existing methods and other prevalent algorithms for disparity computation. The inventive approach provides a significant improvement over existing depth estimation algorithms. Its preferred GPU-based implementation presents a number of novel interpretations of former algorithms, as well as realizations of new algorithms, ranging from texture segmentation, to disparity computation.

Still other objects and advantages of the invention will in part be obvious and will in part be apparent from the specification and drawings.

The invention accordingly comprises the several steps and the relation of one or more of such steps with respect to each of the others, and the apparatus embodying features of construction, combinations of elements and arrangement of parts that are adapted to affect such steps, all as exemplified in the following detailed disclosure, and the scope of the invention will be indicated in the claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a more complete understanding of the invention, reference is made to the following description and accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 depicts possible human visual hierarchy levels;

FIG. 2 depicts an example stereo board setup in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3 depicts texture decomposition with a steerable filter bank in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 4 provides an overview of real-time segmentation in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 5 illustrates the global memory architecture associated with each pixel in a source image in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 6 highlights global memory architecture specific to resynchronization segmentation in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 7 highlights global memory architecture specific to residual segmentation in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 8 depicts computation minimization during the transition from resynchronization compute to residual compute in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 9 provides a visual overview of residual segmentation in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 10 defines an overall approach to a stereo decomposition algorithm in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 11 presents an example implementation of residual compute in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 12 depicts a first stage of statistics accumulation, which occurs at an end of an initialization kernel in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 13 depicts a statistics component of a linking kernel in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 14 depicts a statistics component of the refinement kernel in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 15 depicts a global merge of a thread index and spatially indexed statistics buffers in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 16 provides an overview of a disparity decomposition algorithm in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 17 expands the counting component of disparity decomposition, depicting the accumulation of overlapping pixels in shared memory in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 18 outlines an implementation of disparity decomposition in CUDA in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 19 illustrates a clustering of texture in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 20 displays results of disparity decomposition on a checkered texture in accordance with an embodiment of the invention; and

FIG. 21 displays results of disparity decomposition on a simulated texture region in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

One or more embodiments of the invention will now be described, making reference to the following drawings in which like reference numbers indicate like structure between the drawings.

In accordance with a particular embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 depicts a smart processing board 200 coupled with two image sensors 210 that are preferably placed with their rows parallel across an images' epipolar lines. The sensors are preferably gen-locked so that the left and right images are generated at the same time, and calibrated for stereo. The setup itself may comprise either a simple camera connected to a compute device, or a smart camera, in which case, the compute capabilities may also be present on-board the stereo sensor pair. A detailed description of stereo vision fundamentals is set forth in David A. Forsyth and Jean Ponce, “Stereopsis,” in Computer Vision A Modern Approach.: Prentice Hall, 2003.

As is discussed in M. Marszalek and C. Schmid, “Semantic hierarchies for visual object recognition,” in Proceedings of IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 2007. CVPR '07, MN, 2007, pp. 1-7, a 3D field-of-view is preferably defined as an ensemble of smooth, well-behaved surfaces, varying slowly over space and time. Constancy in registration lends itself conceptually to spatio-temporal constancy, and allows some simplifying assumptions to be made for scene segmentation, including segment-based robustness as well as integrity across frames. Specifically, if a segment in a reference image is accurately matched to its counterpart in a slave image, then estimating the associated disparity value becomes significantly simplified. Good segmentation, however, poses many challenges, including context, shading, gradient changes, etc. Also, correctly matching the segment is no trivial task. Once a segment is robustly tracked in one image, a real challenge arises in trying to match the tracked segment to a corresponding segment in a second image To ensure a level of constancy, segmentation has to also be maintained over a number of frames (time), so that regions are properly tracked. This simplifies the process of firstly computing the correct disparity, and then tracking the segment's disparity across frames.

The Relevance of Segmentation to Disparity Computation

Segmentation, as part of disparity computation, is very crucial, as it allows for a hierarchical approach to the scene and field-of-view (FOV) organization. This approach has been attempted before, see in David A. Forsyth and Jean Ponce, “Stereopsis,” in Computer Vision A Modern Approach.: Prentice Hall, 2003 and in M. Marszalek and C. Schmid, “Semantic hierarchies for visual object recognition,” in Proceedings of IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 2007. CVPR '07, MN, 2007, pp. 1-7. Two properties, relevant to segments, which are carried across scenes are very important: cluster (or segment) number, and the segment's associated first and second-order moments. The fundamental idea is to track such segments across time (consecutive frames) and across space (reference and left frames). The two properties together comprise spatio-temporal constancy.

Governing Principles of Disparity Generation

Initially, a simplifying assumption may be made that entire segments share a common disparity, again borrowing aspects of the surface-based approach noted in Marszalek noted above. This concept will be utilized to iteratively refine a disparity estimate of what will be considered sub-segments of the actual segment. Rigid segmentation may lead to local inaccuracies, and may fundamentally change depth calculation. The inventive approach in accordance with various embodiments of the present invention assumes that an initial disparity estimate provides for a coarse disparity calculation of a given segment. This disparity measurement may be allocated to all pixels in the segment, including ones that are semi-occluded (not visible by one of the two sensors).

Spatio-Temporal Segmentation and Tracking

One of the main advantages of attempting segmentation employing a GPU or other appropriate processing platform is the ability for Single-Instruction-Multiple Data (SIMD) operations to simultaneously update different regions in an image. This significantly simplifies a set of rules being used during a region-growing phase of segmentation.

The Image as a Cluster Map—Clustering may include one or more aspects as set forth in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/784,123, filed May 20, 2010, titled “Gesture Recognition Systems and Related Methods”, currently pending, the contents thereof being incorporated herein by reference. Further refinements of this basic system are set forth herein. Therefore, in accordance with embodiments of the present invention, the following processes may be employed.

Every pixel in a frame, i, presented as p_(i)(x,y), is assigned a cluster number, c_(i)(x,y), such that:

c _(i)(x,y)=x·y−y mod x  Equation 1

In Equation 1, clusters are sequentially numbered left-to-right, and top-to-bottom, such that:

c _(i)(x,y)=c _(i)(x,y−ε)+ε,  Equation 2

where ε is an integer number. At this stage in the segmentation algorithm, pixels may begin to be connected, such that two pixels p_(i)(x,y) and p_(i)(x+1,y) are connected if:

$\begin{matrix} {{{{p_{i}\left( {x,y} \right)} - {p_{i}\left( {{x + 1},y} \right)}} \leq \tau_{p}}{where}{{p_{i}\left( {x,y} \right)} = \left\lfloor \begin{matrix} {r_{i}\left( {x,y} \right)} \\ {g_{i}\left( {x,y} \right)} \\ {b_{i}\left( {x,y} \right)} \end{matrix} \right\rfloor}} & {{Equation}\mspace{14mu} 3} \end{matrix}$

Comprising the three channels, r, g, and b respectively, for a given frame i. A similar implementation has also been developed for HSV-based segmentation. HSV offers a number of perceptually driven properties for segmentation, which may be useful, especially for mitigating issues with shading. This connectivity assigns to the pixels a cluster number that is lowest in its neighborhood. As mentioned earlier, priority is set in descending order, from left to right and from top to bottom. Recall the assumption that all pixels belonging to the same surface are at the same disparity. Surface discontinuities can either refer to a depth discontinuity or a color/texture discontinuity.

Implementation in CUDA—In accordance with the various embodiments of the invention, a key pixel for each cluster is assigned, such that a cluster is defined by that key pixel. Since the implementation is multi-threaded, each pixel in a cluster therefore points to the same pixel to simplify and homogenized the process of tracking clustered/segmented regions. By pointing to the key pixel, clusters preferably have two attributes: 1) a cluster number that is associated with that key pixel, and 2) a stopping criterion, beyond which the cluster is terminated (see implementation above.) The assumption that all pixels belonging to the same surface are at the same disparity value is easily violated without an iterative approach. Specifically, such surfaces have to be further segmented into regions, for more accurate disparity calculation. Surface discontinuities, among other things, can refer to depth discontinuity or a color/texture discontinuity.

Semi-occlusions, Pixels having more than One Disparity Value—Semi-occluded pixels are described in Dongbo Min and Kwanghoon Sohn, “Cost Aggregation and Occlusion Handling With WLS in Stereo Matching,” IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, vol. 17, pp. 1431-1442, 2008, and Vladimir Kolmogorov and Ramin Zabih, “Computing Visual Correspondence with Occlusions via Graph Cuts,” in International Conference on Computer Vision, 2001, as pixels that are visible in only one image (from one sensor), but not from the other. Typically, stereo algorithms have difficulty handling semi-occlusions. In accordance with the present invention semi-occlusions are defined as locations that contain more than one disparity value (a left and right-image disparity value), since there is a foreground and a background value associated with the pixel location. It has been determined by the inventors of the present invention that it is very appropriate in such a case to address semi-occlusions with an inspiration from Gestalt—looking at it from a scene organization standpoint. Specifically, if a pixel belongs to a segment, that pixel will take on the segment's disparity value, even if its actual location is semi-occluded in the reference image. This ultimately means that there are two, not one, disparity estimates for semi-occlusions. The one that is relevant to the segment is chosen. A simple example that is inspired by biology, in which our visual system similarly compensates for semi-occlusions, is illustrated by looking at objects that are only partially occluded, and yet our eyes are capable of reconstructing the entire object at the correct depth. A whole school of psychology has evolved around this principle, known as Gestalt theory, in which our brains are described as having the capacity to reconstruct complex forms, from simpler, and sometimes incomplete, constituents, as further described in Vladimir Kolmogorov, Ramin Zabih, and Steven Gortler, “Generalized Multi-camera Scene Reconstruction Using Graph Cuts,” in Proceedings of the International Workshop on Energy Minimization Methods in Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 2003.

Slanted Regions-Iterative Segmentation—For spatially-dominant regions, spanning large areas, in accordance with embodiments of the invention, an iteration may be used in which the segment itself is broken up across both the rows and columns, in essence, further segmenting the clusters into smaller ones, and re-evaluating these smaller clusters. By enforcing over-segmentation in the disparity space, a more refined disparity estimate may be obtained. Segmenting clusters across rows provides for the vertical tilt (or slant) of a cluster, while segmenting across the columns provides for the horizontal tilt (or slant) of a given cluster.

Refining the iteration—Given that iterations may be executed in both the vertical and horizontal directions, these iterations can be combined together to produce one result including both iterations. One possibility is to average both iterations, such that the new estimated disparity is given by Equation 4:

{tilde over (d)} _(i)(x,y)= 1/2 d _(irows)(x,y)+ 1/2 d _(icolumns)(x,y)

Segmenting Texture—One of the fundamental drawbacks and arguments against stereo imaging has been the performance in regions that are highly-textured. Such regions may contribute to false positives in the disparity computation, since many similarity metrics will confuse regions which look spatially similar. In accordance with embodiments of the present invention, texture segmentation may be approached generatively, in which a texture primitive is in itself comprised of a number of color primitives. First, a look at alternative approaches in texture segmentation is presented to see how they may affect stereo/disparity computation.

Texture, described extensively in the literature, (see Wolfgang Metzger, Laws of Seeing.: MIT Press, 2006.), is comprised of a fundamental building element, called a texton, or texture primitive. Extracting texture primitives from images is a challenging task and has been the subject of on-going research. Some approaches utilize a Gabor (or wavelet) multi-scale filter bank to decompose a texture into its primitives, establishing spatial periodicity and extracting a texture primitive that can be explicitly expressed. For example, in Metzger, dominant spatial texture orientations of a grayscale version of an image are extracted, and multiscale frequency decomposition is attempted. This is accomplished with a steerable pyramid decomposition process as set forth in Junqing Chen, Pappas T. N., Mojsilovic A., and Rogowitz B. E., “Adaptive perceptual color-texture image segmentation,” IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, vol. 4, no. 0, pp. 1524-1536, October 2005, in which frequency decomposition is accomplished with four orientation subbands: horizontal, vertical, and the two diagonals, is shown in FIG. 3. Running the input image through the filter bank, the maximum response at each pixel location may be computed. This computation may be performed by calculating the energy at each pixel, defined as the square of the filter response coefficients. A one level decomposition may then be utilized. A pixel location (x,y) may then be classified as belonging to a given texture orientation depending on the maximum response at (x,y) of the filter bank. A composite texture would have more than one strong response from the filter bank.

Computationally, these are very expensive methods, and they make many unrealistic assumptions about knowing a priori dominant orientations which are associated with a texture primitive. Furthermore, such approaches suffer in the presence of a dominant gradient which is associated with the texture, i.e. if the texture has a gradient component that spatially and/or temporally varies. Such approaches negatively impact disparity/stereo computation for two reasons: 1) as mentioned above, regions with similar responses to texture decomposition may behave similarly to a region, or pixel-based similarity metric, and 2) texture segmentation and classification may be computationally prohibitive when combined with stereo, and the rest of the algorithm.

Approaching Texture Segmentation Generatively—Therefore, in accordance with various embodiments of the present invention, a different approach to texture segmentation is preferably employed that is very useful for disparity computation, and adopts the concept of “emergence” from the Gestalt school of psychology, see Vladimir Kolmogorov, Ramin Zabih, and Steven Gortler, “Generalized Multi-camera Scene Reconstruction Using Graph Cuts, in Proceedings of the International Workshop on Energy Minimization Methods in Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 2003. In accordance with embodiments of the invention, a texton, or texture primitive may be viewed as a set of color primitives, combined together to produce a perceptually consistent spatially periodic or slowly-varying texture primitive, which, in itself, comprises texture. These color primitives define and comprise the texture spatial primitives. Many techniques have been developed to evaluate texture. In accordance with embodiments of the invention, texture is reviewed in the sense of interleaving a series of color primitives through slowly varying them over time. This is a generative approach, in which it is determined how a particular texture is formed in the first place, and then the texture is represented as a weighted linear combination of a color primitive, as well as its gradient that is associated with that color primitive. Pixels belonging to the same color primitive may be clustered independently, such that, for any given texture, a texture primitive is defined as a linear combination of clusters, comprised of these color primitives. A texture primitive, T, over a window, W, may be given by:

T _(x,y) =T _(x+ε) ₁ _(,y+ε) ₂   Equation 5

Where ε₁ and ε₂ are values which represent periodicity in the texture primitive.

Also, T is represented by:

T _(x,y) =C ₀(x,y)+C ₁(x,y)+ . . . +C _(N-1)(x,y)

where

ΔT _(x,y)=Δ_(C) ₀ T _(x,y)(x,y)+Δ_(C) ₁ T _(x,y)(x,y)+ . . . +Δ_(C) _(N-1) T _(x,y)(x,y)

The gradient associated with the texture represents an N-th order tensor field comprised of the linear combination of all the partials associated with the individual segment changes across a given cluster/segment. One can look at each segment as representing a path or direction.

To successfully compute disparity for textured regions, the inventive approach implicitly mitigates texture by looking at variations in both scale and intensity, as gradual changes in themselves. Together, changes in color, intensity, and lighting, make extracting a texture primitive quite challenging, mainly due to the permutation of combinations that is perceptually easy to identify, yet very difficult to describe in closed form. Instead, the inventive approach is less concerned with defining texture primitives and more concerned with generatively reproducing texture primitives from more fundamental spatially varying primitives. Such primitives constitute interleaving segments that constitute a perceptually-visible texture. This concept extends to address primitives that are disjoint, such as those that may include, for example, a checkerboard pattern as shown in FIG. 20. This runs counter to the idea of the segment being one contiguous set of spatial elements. Such a notion may be violated primarily because once such a segment is robustly identified, it is relatively simple to run disparity calculation on the segment (and hence the number of segments comprising the texture primitive). Once all the segments' disparity values have been calculated (see discussion of on texture-based disparity decomposition, below), then the actual textured region emerges from the disparity map as belonging to a consistent disparity, but is spatially segmented into a number of interleaving segments comprising the texture itself, hence the concept of emergence, mentioned earlier.

To summarize, the underlying concepts governing texture segmentation include 1) Texture color primitives can link up correctly even in the presence of a gradient associated with them, to form a consistent segment; and 2) Interleaving two or more such segments together constitutes texture. Segmentation Rules: as set forth in the Ser. No. 12/784,123 reference noted above, may include 1) the concept of spatio-temporal constancy; 2) the lowest cluster number rule; and 3) that segments ultimately live and die in the field-of-view.

Residual Image Compute—Stereo Codec

This is a computationally expensive algorithm that can be significantly improved for real-time performance in accordance with various embodiments of the invention, in which computation is only performed on the changes in the image, referred to as the residual image. The overall approach requires a similar one to typical video codec encoding schemes, such as the H.264 encoding standard as presented in W. T. Freeman and E. Adelson, “The design and use of steerable filters,” IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, vol. 13, pp. 891-906, September 1991 or Thomas Wiegand, Gary J. Sullivan, Gisle Bjøntegaard, and Ajay Luthra, “Overview of the H.264/AVC Video Coding Standard,” IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, vol. 13, no. 7, pp. 560-576, July 2003. Such standards have emerged as the new compression standard associated with video codecs. H.264 has flexibility, as a video compression standard, which Metzger allows for real-time gains in bandwidth. H.264 enables this great reduction by exploiting both intra-frame and inter-frame redundancies and reducing the overall compute load required to represent an image.

Since changes in a video stream are gradual, an image is mostly unchanged in real-time, transitioning from one frame to another. It is logical to assume in accordance with embodiments of the invention that the FLOPS/computational load would be diminished in real-time, since relatively very few pixels change between frames. As such, a similar method is adopted in accordance with embodiments of the present invention where a reference image I is utilized, and only the residual information between consecutive images is preferably processed in real-time. In H.264, an image is segmented into blocks of non-uniform size. This concept is transferred over in accordance with embodiments of the present invention, utilizing an existing segmented cluster map instead. However, a more complex memory architecture may also be employed, comprised of a reference image, a cluster map, a segmented reference image, and a depth map. In accordance with embodiments of the present invention, a reference memory architecture may be utilized comprised of all these images, and a residual architecture comprised of the difference between these reference images and subsequent images in a video stream. As is shown in FIG. 4, one or more reference frames 410 are shown. In each of these reference frames, a complete segment cluster map is acquired at a resynchronization phase. Each page 420 therebetween comprises a composite frame comprised of temporally stable segments, and more recently computed temporally unstable segments.

In accordance with the present invention, a process for computing the various required valued resembles that suggested for the H.264 and other video encoding schemes. Thus, two main sections are presented: FIG. 6 depicts a resynchronization segmentation portion of the processing. In the section of the algorithm shown in FIG. 6, a series of steps is used to create a stable depth map. FIG. 6 highlights the global memory architecture specific to resynchronization segmentation. At 610, a preliminary clustering step is shown, assigning each non-background pixel (525) a cluster number derived from the pixel's spatial coordinates. At 615, linked pixels are assigned a common cluster number, forming segments that accumulate color and size statistics in two buffers. At 620, separate statistics buffers are merged together, allowing each segment's average color to be computed at 625. The average color is then used to further refine the segmentation at 625, where clusters grow agglomeratively according to color and spatial connectivity. After successive iterations of the clustering process, the final statistics for each segment are computed 630.

The term temporally stable is preferably used to describe segments which have very little change in their overall statistics and depth values. In the section of the algorithm set forth in FIG. 7, a residual compute section looks at the differences between subsequent frames and processes the residuals associated with these frames, enabling a reduced compute load i.e. less compute operations to perform disparity estimation. FIG. 7 highlights the global memory architecture specific to residual segmentation. Drawing on the segmentation flags defined at 525, residual segmentation begins at 710 with temporal differencing to determine pixel stability between the current and previous frames. At 715, unstable residual pixels are assigned new cluster numbers, while key pixels are stabilized, and stable pixels are ignored. At 720, a specialized linking stage is performed to update transitional pixels with a persistent cluster ID. From this point, segmentation continues as defined at 615-625. At 725, the stability of each segment is evaluated to determine if the depth of a segment should be reevaluated.

In accordance with various embodiments of the invention, during the process, starting with a reference, I_(c) cluster map (see FIG. 7) derived utilizing the standard algorithm presented above, after determining pixels which have changed they can be properly encoded. With that architecture in mind, it is only necessary to examine pixels that are temporally unstable. Once the cluster map is updated by re-initializing the pixels with initial cluster numbers, the rest of the algorithm flows from that step, as will be described below.

Associated Pixel Flags and Pixel Memory Architecture—As is next depicted in FIG. 5, an overall architecture of global memory associated with per-pixel allocations is provided. As is shown in FIG. 5, corresponding left and right framed 510L, 510R are shown. Each such frame comprises a plurality of pixels 515. Each pixel 515 further comprises a plurality of RGBA channels 520 associated with the source data. In memory, every pixel is comprised of the R,G, and B channels, as well as an alpha channel (shown as RGB and A segments 520). In this implementation, the alpha channel is used to store a number of flags which are useful for residual compute operations. These segment- and pixel-level encoded flags are shown in FIG. 5 at information 525, as may preferably comprise:

Segment Stability: denotes the temporal stability of the segment that the current pixel is associated with.

Cluster ID Number: denotes the cluster number associated with a the current pixel.

Cluster Affinity: Denotes the relationship of the cluster with a key pixel in another cluster.

Key Pixel: denotes whether the current pixel is a key pixel of a cluster or segment.

Temporal Stability: denotes the temporal stability of the current pixel.

Edge: denotes whether the current pixel is an edge pixel.

Edge: another flag for an edge pixel.

!Background: denotes whether the current pixel is not a background pixel.

Note that pixels are background pixels, temporally stable pixels, or temporally unstable pixels.

Segmentation in Real-time—Under real-time conditions, segmentation is only attempted on any temporally unstable residual pixels. Clustering follows that step, such that pixels with common color and spatial proximity are clustered together. Agglomeratively connecting such clusters to previously existing segments is then performed. At this point, any clusters/segments whose size/statistics have been significantly changed undergo disparity decomposition. Such segments are considered unstable, and will have their disparity recomputed. Otherwise, the remaining, stable, segments do not contribute to the residual data, and are part of the reconstructed frame. Disparity decomposition is not performed on temporally stable segments, and instead, a composite depth map is formed, comprised of temporally stable (and thus already pre-computed segments) as well as the computed segments.

Such an approach to real-time segmentation and depth calculation requires a memory architecture in global memory to support this approach. The architecture proposed in accordance with various embodiments of the present invention contains both reference as well as residual portions, again in a manner similar to typical video codecs such as H.264. This architecture is then utilized at different steps in the analysis to significantly reduce compute load and enhance accuracy. FIG. 8 depicts computation minimization during the transition from resynchronization compute 210 to residual compute 220. As is shown in FIG. 8, the computational burden for resynching frames of an image is substantially higher than that required for the residual computations.

FIG. 9 provides a visual overview of residual segmentation, beginning from the source image at 910. As is further shown in FIG. 9, the input images shown in row 910 comprise, and may be shown as background pixels, temporally stable non-background pixels (row 920) and temporally unstable pixels (row 930), all being clustered and segmented into a composite image shown in row 940. Row 920 highlights the non-residual segments from the previous frame while row 930 highlights the residual segments. The output image, at 940, combines the residual and non-residual segments to create a composite cluster map. Significant gains in compute load are especially useful for enhancing accuracy and enabling iterative updating of depth calculation and refinement, as well as increasing frame rate.

Thus the following set of guidelines governing segmentation and disparity computation in real-time are realized. If there is no change in the image, the overall FLOPS count should drop very dramatically. Any segment that has significantly changed is deemed temporally unstable and will have its disparity recalculated. The depth map is a composite map comprised of temporally stable segments as well as temporally unstable ones

Implementation in CUDA—FIG. 10 depicts a high level approach as to how the algorithm for stereo decomposition with resynchronization compute in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention are to be implemented. As is shown in FIG. 10, and in keeping with the above description, a resynchronization compute step 1010 is first implemented, followed by a residual recompute step 1020 to update temporally unstable pixels and clusters in a next frame. Finally, a depth refinement step may optionally be employed at step 1030.

To implement this approach, the inventive architecture accounts for the number of flags noted above that define the stability of the pixels, as well as their relationship to the corresponding clusters and segments. A pixel's cluster number is then assessed; the pixel either receives a new cluster number (cluster number is elevated) if it is temporally unstable, or maintains the same cluster number that is associated with a segment. This enables changes at the pixel level to affect the segment. Conversely, if the segment is found to be temporally stable, all pixels belonging to that segment will have their temporal stability flag updated accordingly, even if the pixels are temporally unstable. Thus, to deem a pixel temporally unstable requires that both the segment stability flag and the pixel stability flag be enabled. Therefore, if a segment is deemed temporally unstable, every pixel in that segment is deemed unstable in spite of the fact that some of them might have been deemed stable earlier in the algorithm.

FIG. 11 presents an example of this process. As is shown in FIG. 11, in a first step 1110 a previous cluster map C_(i) from a prior frame is copied to a current cluster map C_(i-1). In a next step 1120, a difference C_(i)-C_(i-1) is computed to determine one or more temporally unstable pixels P_(u) between a new current cluster C_(i) and a prior cluster C_(i-1) from a new prior frame at step 1130, and the key pixel is updated if it is determined in the prior step that the key pixel from the prior frame is now unstable. Finally, the cluster map is updated with residual pixels only at step 1140, by allowing the cluster to merge with all other clusters, effectively merging the determined temporally stable pixels with the determined unstable pixels P_(u).

Computing Residual Statistics—The overall concept of residual-only compute lends itself to one or more statistics calculations for the cluster map, an essential step in segmentation. Because residual statistics are maintained on the block level, a first step utilizes block statistics accumulators, which must be merged after a final refinement iteration. Subsequent stages will occur during residual segmentation to compute statistics solely on temporally unstable pixels. Computing the statistics of a set of data is inherently a serial operation. Many GPU-based implementations associated with statistics are presented in Ian E. G. Richardson, H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 White Paper, 2003, where a merge-sort implementation is presented. Eric Sintron and Ulf Assarson, “Fast Parallel GPU-Sorting Using a Hybrid Algorithm,” Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing, vol. 68, no. 10, pp. 1381-1388, October 2008. Another approach, presented in Sintron and Assarson, utilizes a linked list prefix computations, implemented on GPUs. In Zheng Wei and Joseph Jaja, “Optimization of Linked List Prefix Computations on Multithreaded GPUs Using CUDA,” in 2010 IEEE International Symposium on Parallel & Distributed Processing (IPDPS), Atlanta, 2010, a parallel search is presented however, they are mostly aimed at a homogeneous data set, with the idea of starting with a large data set, and then condensing, or reducing the data set with intermediate statistics, until the final statistics are calculated. Other techniques include stream compaction Tim Kaldewey, Jeff Hagen, Andrea Di Blas, and Eric Sedlar, “Parallel Search On Video Cards,” in First USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Parallelism (HotPar '09), 2009, and scan/scatter algorithms Shubhabrata Sengupta, Mark Harris, Yao Zhang, and John D. Owens, “Scan Primitives for GPU Computing,” in Proceedings of the 2007 Graphics Hardware Conference, San Diego, Calif., 2007, pp. 97-106. Any of these techniques can work for sorting through the clusters and compacting the data into a few segments. In accordance with the invention, support for sort/compaction across multiple portions of the inventive algorithm have been provided, since statistics computation is very critical for real-time implementation. In such a case, a different approach is taken from that presented in the prior art. The compute load that is associated with the statistics is preferably distributed so that a parallel implementation becomes feasible. Note that if APUs are available, an alternative approach could be used in which an X-86 processor (for instance), sharing memory with a number of ALUs, may perform the intermediate calculations. The performance would even be enhanced further in that case because a shared memory CPU does provide an enhanced ability in handling all the relevant serial operations.

Statistics Implementation—Statistics are first accumulated on the block level into two separate buffers, as is displayed in FIG. 12. FIG. 12 depicts a first stage of statistics accumulation, which occurs at the end of the initialization kernel. In this case, preferably each pixel in the image is assigned a thread 1220, which add the pixel's statistics (red, green, and blue value) to a spatially indexed buffer 1230 at the location indicated by the cluster number 1210. Because initial cluster numbers are defined according to spatial coordinates, the thread indexed buffer 1240 remains empty.

Because the initial cluster numbers are constrained by the spatial boundaries of the block, the initialization kernel will merge the spatial statistics on the block level. The integration of statistics components is integrated into, both, the linking and refinement steps, illustrated in FIG. 13. FIG. 13 depicts the statistics component of the linking kernel. As in FIG. 12, the cluster number of a given pixel is shown at 1210. However, the upper circle indicates the starting number and the circle indicated the linked number. 1310 and 1320 highlight the effect of spatial location on the merging of statistics. At 1310, a pixel merges with a segment whose statistics are located in the same spatial buffer 1230, allowing merging within the same buffer. The opposite case is shown at 1320, where the statistics are moved to the thread indexed buffer 1240. The refinement and linking kernels will hence update these statistics as the clusters merge using the secondary buffer. A final merge kernel will compact the secondary buffers across all blocks and merge the results with the primary spatial buffers to create a global statistics map, which is then integrated with the rest of the stereo algorithm, displayed in FIG. 14. FIG. 14 depicts the statistics component of the refinement kernel. Again, the initial and refined cluster number of a given pixel are shown at 1210. When a pixel is refined 1410, any stats remaining in the spatially indexed buffer 1230 are moved to the thread indexed buffer 1240. FIG. 15 depicts the global merge of the thread index and spatially indexed statistics buffers. At 1510, each thread loops through every cluster number in a given block. When a match is found 1420, the thread with the lowest index merges statistics global with the spatially indexed buffer.

Disparity Decomposition—The goal of disparity computation is to decompose the image into a series of surfaces that are present at different disparity values. The right, reference image I_(R) is subtracted from a shifted version of the left image. However, instead of looking at per-pixel metrics, such as described in accordance with the prior art noted above, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention utilizes a segment-based disparity estimate, and tries to represent the best disparity value that is associated with a given segment.

In accordance with this embodiment of the invention, a left image I₁ is shifted one pixel at a time, while subtraction between left and right images is performed with the shifted versions of the left image. Every shift then represents a new disparity. The resulting set of difference images then constitutes a disparity decomposition of every segment in the image. Any zero-pixels represent regions (or segments) in the image that are candidates for the correct disparity. The computation of a difference image is presented as:

For any given segment Si, such that S_(i) ⊂S,

For a given disparity, d_(i,S):

$\begin{matrix} {{\left\{ S_{i} \right\}_{n = 1}^{\overset{\sim}{N}}{\overset{\sim}{S}}_{i}}{and}{{I_{D}^{(d)}\left( {x,y} \right)} = {\max\limits_{c \in {\{{R,G,B}\}}}\left( {{{{I_{R}\left( {x,y} \right)} - {I_{L}\left( {{x - d},y} \right)}}} \leq \tau_{c}} \right)}}{{such}\mspace{14mu} {that}\text{:}}{\left( {x,y} \right) \in \left\{ {\left( {x_{0},y_{0}} \right),\left( {x_{1},y_{1}} \right),\ldots \mspace{14mu},\left( {x_{N},y_{N}} \right)} \right\}}} & {{Equation}\mspace{14mu} 6} \end{matrix}$

Where d denotes the current shift, and τ_(c) is the threshold that is associated with a current color channel.

So, Ñ⊂N

For any given segment, disparity decomposition is a means of reducing the candidate disparity values that can be associated with the segment (based on a similarity metric). The goal is to determine a disparity that best matches a given segment. A similarity metric is used in which the total number of overlapping pixels can zero out regions in the segment during the subtraction phase of disparity decomposition. For a given disparity, the more pixels in the segment that are zeroed out, the closer the segment is to the correct disparity. The similarity metric for estimating segment disparity is given by:

$\begin{matrix} {{\overset{\sim}{d}}_{i,S} = {\underset{D}{argmax}{{\overset{\sim}{S}}_{i}\left( {x,y,d} \right)}}} & {{Equation}\mspace{14mu} 7} \end{matrix}$

Where {tilde over (D)}_(i,S) represents the disparity estimate for a given segment S, and {tilde over (S)}_(i)(x,y,D) represents the portion of the segment that is present at step D, in a given disparity decomposition step. Every segment in the image can be considered a sequence that is comprised of the reference image's pixels, such that {S_(n)}_(n=1) ^(N) where N is the size of the segment in the reference image. For a given disparity, we can define a sub-sequence {{tilde over (S)}_(n)}_(n=1) ^(Ñ) ^(D) , for a given disparity, D, such that {tilde over (S)}_(n) is a subsequence of {S_(n)}_(n=1) ^(N), and N≧Ñ.

The goal is to have S_(n) and {tilde over (S)}_(n) overlap nearly entirely at one of the candidate disparity values. The appropriate disparity is estimated as one that maximizes the ratio of the subsequence, relative to its sequence. Equation 7 above can actually be represented as:

$\begin{matrix} {{\overset{\sim}{D}}_{i,S} = {\underset{D}{argmax}\frac{{\overset{\sim}{N}}_{D}}{N}}} & {{Equation}\mspace{14mu} 8} \end{matrix}$

FIG. 16 presents an overview of this disparity decomposition section. As is shown in FIG. 16, processing begins at step 1610 in which left and right source and cluster map image data is read in. Then, at step 1620 the right source image value of the key pixel is read to determine segment temporal stability. At step 1630 an inquiry is made as to whether the condition is stable. If the inquiry at step 1630 is answered in the affirmative, and it is therefore determined that a stability condition exists, processing continues at step 1660, where the block level counters are merged at the grid level in global memory for each disparity and combined globally across the entire image 1670 before compressing the resultant decomposition into an image with 1 bit allocated per disparity value.

If, on the other hand, the inquiry at step 1630 is answered in the negative, and it is therefore determined that a stability condition does not exist, processing then continues at step 1640 where differences between left and right images are computed at each disparity level. Next, at step 1650, a cluster counter is incremented if the difference computed in step 1640 is below a predetermined threshold determined empirically. Then, at step 660, these difference results are stored in a compressed form, comprising (1-bit/disparity). So, for 32 disparity values, a 32-bit image is used. For 64 disparity values, a 64-bit image is used, and so on.). Finally, processing then passes to step 1660 as described above.

Violating the Subsequence Criterion—The rule, of looking at similarity as an overlap ratio, based on a number of spatio-temporal criteria, presented above can be violated in a number of special cases. For instance, this can happen if a smaller segment undergoing disparity decomposition overlapped a much larger segment with similar spatial characteristics. For such a case, penalizing the non-overlapped region would present one means of mitigating such a problem. Another case can occur if such a segment belongs to a textured pattern, occurring at a spatially periodic setting. In this case, agglomeratively growing the regions (see earlier section on segmentation) would present a possible solution. Then, textured regions would cluster together before disparity decomposition occurs (see section below on disparity estimation of textured regions).

Implementation in CUDA—To accomplish disparity decomposition in accordance with the various embodiments of the invention, an efficient shift-difference kernel may be implemented, as will be shown below. Each block may read one row of source image data to shared memory. As a result, the difference between left and right image pixels can be computed for several disparities at once because all of the necessary data is available in shared memory. Because only one bit is necessary to store the result of the threshold on the difference result, the results can be compressed into a single 32-bit image in which each pixel contains the results from all disparities. This inventive method not only reduces storage requirements, but also reduces the number of required read/write operations on global memory. An extension of this method can be used to encode 64 bits or 128-bit disparity differences, stored in a 64 or 128-bit image.

The block may be preferably organized in three dimensions with the z-dimension representing the disparity. To maximize performance, the size of shared memory may preferably be kept under 4 KB to allow up to four blocks to be swapped out per streaming multiprocessor (SM). Depending on the GPU (or APU), shared memory may differ. In a particular exemplary implementation, the size of the z-dimension will be set to eight and each thread will calculate the difference for four disparity values in a loop if the maximum disparity is set to 32. The results of the differencing operation are stored in shared memory at the end of each iteration, per the description of disparity decomposition that was presented earlier. After all iterations have been executed, the final 32-bit values will be written to Global Memory, as a disparity image I_(D)(x,y). For larger images, the size of the z-dimension may be reduced to maintain the size of the shared memory used per block.

In addition to computing the difference between the source images, these intersection pixels are preferably counted with respect to the clusters in the left and right images to determine how much of each cluster in one image intersects with clusters in the other image. FIG. 17 presents steps describe an implementation of such a counting algorithm, and expands the counting component of disparity decomposition, depicting the accumulation of overlapping pixels in shared memory. As is shown in FIG. 17, at a first step 1710, counter buffers in shared memory are initialized to zero. Then, starting at step 1720, for each non-zero shift-difference pixel perform steps 1730-1750. At step 1730 the buffer is scanned through to find a matching cluster number, and then at step 1730, the associated counter is incremented using an atomic shared memory operation. Finally, at step 1750, threads in the z-dimension handle multiple disparities. After each non-zero shift-difference pixel is addressed at step 1720, processing passes to step 1760 where the various threads are synchronized. Finally, at step 1770, the counter values from the shared memory are added to their respective counters in global memory.

A system in which the algorithm of FIG. 17 is implemented is shown in FIG. 18. As is set forth in FIG. 18, one row of left and right cluster map images 1810 are first read into shared memory 1820, each thread preferably handling four pixels. Then, at 1830 cluster numbers associated with the read in cluster map images are searched for in the shared memory buffer, 8 pixels being simultaneously searched for using threads in the z-dimension. If the cluster number is found, the count associated with that cluster number is incremented using atomic operations. Otherwise, the cluster number entry is added and the count associated with that cluster number is set to one. After all of the cluster map images are read in, the threads are synched so that all the threads are synchronized, preferably by a GPU or other appropriate processing element, during execution, effectively having all threads “wait” until every thread has finished its computation in a block or kernel. Finally at 1840 the current shared memory counts are added to the existing values in Global Memory.

The buffer containing the cluster numbers in the correct order will be copied to texture memory so it can quickly be accessed by all thread blocks.

Composite Disparity Real-time Analysis—In real-time, the pixel architecture is again utilized, such that preferably, only temporally unstable segments have their disparity computed. As such disparity decomposition is reduced to segment-disparity decomposition. The result is a composite disparity image, comprised of already temporally stable segments and the newly computed/merged temporally unstable segments, on which disparity decomposition has been attempted.

Disparity Estimation of Textured Regions—Texture Disparity “Emergence”—The inventive segmentation algorithm is capable of agglomeratively adjoining spatially disjoint regions through an inter-cluster criterion. Growing such inter-cluster region thresholds gradually through kernel iterations allows for combining multiple smaller clusters into one larger, disjoint cluster. The advantage is an ability to segment textured regions, which are characterized by spatially periodic regions (see earlier section on texture). Although these regions are clearly disjoint, they are actually easily assembled together after disparity decomposition. The best disparity estimates will solidly remain associated with the correct cluster. This is accomplished through an emergence of a texture pattern from its constituent primitives after disparity computation.

FIG. 19 depicts violating the spatial connectivity criterion in building apparently spatially disjoint objects as fundamental building blocks of texture where texture is composed of two clusters, 1910 and 1920. All the white blocks constitute one object 1910, although the individual blocks may themselves be regarded as objects. All the gray blocks constitute another object 1920.

The concept of emergence in texture segmentation and the subsequent disparity computation is consistent with Gestalt psychology, or Gestaltism. In Gestalt theory, the brain is holistic, with self-organizing features, which, when combined together form more complex objects. As such, many Gestalt theorists argue that objects emerge from their constituent parts, hence the concept of emergence, presented by Metzger, noted above. In the inventive implementation of texture segmentation, a similar approach is adapted. The inventive approach to texture segmentation is Gestalt-inspired, and allows for this emergence of an object, such as those highlighted in FIGS. 20 and 21 from a number of constituent segments. FIG. 20 displays the results of disparity decomposition on a checkered texture, showing the input source images at 2010, the segmented source at 2020, and the disparity decomposition at 2030L and 2030R. FIG. 20 includes a disparity decomposition of a textured checkerboard sequence. Two segments are created (one for black squares and one for white ones). The disparity of both is estimated. In the disparity map, both objects have the same disparity computed. Different colors of the checkerboard form different clusters which appear at the same disparity. Texture “emerges” from this decomposition. FIG. 21 displays the results of disparity decomposition on a simulated texture region, showing the input source at 2110, the segmented source at 2120, and the disparity decomposition at 2130L and 2130R. FIG. 21 depicts two checkerboard sequences offset from each other by a disparity value (18 in this case). Again, the segmentation highlights two segments and after disparity computation they emerge as one object.

Both figures highlight a highly-textured region where conventional region-based and pixel-based disparity computation techniques perform poorly. In both images, a checkerboard sequence is estimated at the correct disparity. This is because the checkerboard sequence is really comprised of two objects representing all the white squares and all the black ones. Segmentation is first accomplished on the back and white squares separately. These squares are then agglomeratively adjoined to create larger white and black clusters. The disparities of each of the two objects is then computed. A depth-based clustering step is utilized to segment a foreground object that is highly textured, comprised of the entire checkerboard sequence.

Therefore, in accordance with various embodiments of the present invention, an algorithm for disparity computation that preferably runs on a GPU and other appropriate platforms, and performs very well in real-time conditions is presented. A residual compute portion of the algorithm reduces the FLOPs count dramatically, by exploiting a residual architectural component, and creating composite intermediate images for the segmentation as well as disparity computation. Texture is mitigated with a Gestalt-inspired technique that emphasizes the emergence of texture at the correct disparity by correctly estimating the disparities of its constituents. Examples of mitigating other chronic issues associated with region and pixel-based techniques have also been shown.

It will thus be seen that the objects set forth above, among those made apparent from the preceding description, are efficiently attained and, because certain changes may be made in carrying out the above method and in the construction(s) set forth without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, it is intended that all matter contained in the above description and shown in the accompanying drawings shall be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense.

It is also to be understood that this description is intended to cover all of the generic and specific features of the invention herein described and all statements of the scope of the invention which, as a matter of language, might be said to fall there between. 

1. (canceled)
 2. A method for performing segmentation of an image, comprising the steps of: assigning a unique cluster number to each pixel in an image frame, the cluster numbers being assigned in accordance with a predetermined sequence; connecting two pixels to form a larger cluster, and assigning a cluster number from one of the two unique cluster numbers to the other pixel, if it is determined that the pixels do not differ by more than a predetermined threshold amount in one or more of one or more characteristics.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the predetermined sequence comprises an ascending number sequence.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein the assigned cluster number is the lower of the two unique cluster numbers.
 5. The method of claim 2, wherein the predetermined sequence comprises a descending number sequence.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the assigned cluster number is the higher of the two unique cluster numbers.
 7. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of connecting two pixels is performed for each pair of pixels in the image located spatially adjacent.
 8. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of connecting two pixels is performed for each pair of pixels in the image located within a predetermined distance from each other.
 9. The method of claim 2, further comprising the steps of: connecting a third pixel to the formed larger cluster; and assigning a cluster number from one of the cluster number of the third pixel and the cluster number of all of the pixels in the larger cluster to each of the third pixel and all of the pixels in the larger cluster, if it is determined that the third pixel and the pixels of the larger cluster do not differ by more than a predetermined threshold amount in one or more of one or more characteristics.
 10. The method of claim 2, wherein one or more large clusters comprising at least two pixels similar with respect to the one or more characteristics are formed.
 11. The method of claim 10, further comprising the step of defining a key pixel for each large cluster from among the at least two pixels therein, and utilizing that key pixel as the unique cluster number.
 12. The method of claim 2, further comprising the step of connecting a plurality of clusters via their cluster numbers.
 13. The method of claim 12, wherein the plurality of clusters are further connected in accordance with one or more predetermined thresholds.
 14. The method of claim 12, further comprising the step of defining a stopping criterion beyond which the cluster does not extend.
 15. The method of claim 2, wherein the one or more characteristics comprise values that may be selected from among the group of a red, green and blue color space; Hue; Saturation Value; a single color channel; and a predetermined colorspace, or combination thereof.
 16. The method of claim 2, wherein the one or more characteristics comprise a depth value calculated from a disparity value.
 17. The method of claim 2, further comprising the steps of: segmenting each of the one or more clusters into sub-regions in accordance with one or more characteristics of the segments and pixels thereof; and calculating the disparity of each of the sub-regions.
 18. The method of claim 17, wherein each of the one or more clusters are segmented into the sub regions by breaking up the clusters across rows and columns of pixels in an image.
 19. (canceled)
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 27. (canceled)
 28. A computer program stored in a non-transitory storage medium for performing segmentation of an image, the computer program, when implemented on a processor, causing the processor to perform the steps of: assigning a unique cluster number to each pixel in an image frame, the cluster numbers being assigned in accordance with a predetermined sequence; connecting two pixels to form a larger cluster, and assigning a cluster number from one of the two unique cluster numbers to the other pixel, if it is determined that the pixels do not differ by more than a predetermined threshold amount in one or more of one or more characteristics.
 29. The computer program of claim 28, wherein the predetermined sequence comprises an ascending number sequence.
 30. The computer program of claim 29, wherein the assigned cluster number is the lower of the two unique cluster numbers.
 31. The computer program of claim 28, wherein the predetermined sequence comprises a descending number sequence.
 32. The computer program of claim 31, wherein the assigned cluster number is the higher of the two unique cluster numbers.
 33. The computer program of claim 28, wherein the step of connecting two pixels is performed for each pair of pixels in the image located spatially adjacent.
 34. The computer program of claim 28, wherein the step of connecting two pixels is performed for each pair of pixels in the image located within a predetermined distance from each other.
 35. The computer program of claim 28, further comprising the steps of: connecting a third pixel to the formed larger cluster; and assigning a cluster number from one of the cluster number of the third pixel and the cluster number of all of the pixels in the larger cluster to each of the third pixel and all of the pixels in the larger cluster, if it is determined that the third pixel and the pixels of the larger cluster do not differ by more than a predetermined threshold amount in one or more of one or more characteristics.
 36. The computer program of claim 28, wherein one or more large clusters comprising at least two pixels similar with respect to the one or more characteristics are formed.
 37. The computer program of claim 36, further comprising the step of defining a key pixel for each large cluster from among the at least two pixels therein, and utilizing that key pixel as the unique cluster number.
 38. The computer program of claim 28, further comprising the step of connecting a plurality of clusters via their cluster numbers.
 39. The computer program of claim 38, wherein the plurality of clusters are further connected in accordance with one or more predetermined thresholds.
 40. The computer program of claim 39, further comprising the step of defining a stopping criterion beyond which the cluster does not extend.
 41. The computer program of claim 28, wherein the one or more characteristics comprise values that may be selected from among the group of a red, green and blue color space; Hue; Saturation Value; a single color channel; and a predetermined colorspace, or combination thereof.
 42. The computer program of claim 28, wherein the one or more characteristics comprise a depth value calculated from a disparity value.
 43. The computer program of claim 28, further comprising the steps of: segmenting each of the one or more clusters into sub-regions in accordance with one or more characteristics of the segments and pixels thereof; and calculating the disparity of each of the sub-regions.
 44. The computer program of claim 43, wherein each of the one or more clusters is segmented into the sub regions by breaking up the clusters across rows and columns of pixels in an image.
 45. (canceled)
 46. (canceled)
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